"A Fortunate Man with MS" Podcast

A Very Special Episode

Hi, this is Jack Greenman. In honor of national MS Awareness Week, which this year is March 9-15, I’m excited to bring you this very special episode of “A Fortunate Man with MS”! For the first time on this podcast, you will hear my brother, Gil Greenman, tell his story in his own voice.

Reasons for Optimism

In my work on mindfulness, I open to what arises: sounds, sensations—including pain—and then, of course, thoughts. They arrive like waves on the ocean. Occasional waves of reality-based optimism are appearing.

Our Summer on the Bay Downtown

My amazing wife Lisa shared an idea: “I think Gil and I should come [to the Edgewater Hotel} every Friday in the summer and spend the night. We can have drinks in the bar in the middle of the day with one set of friends and then later have dinner with another group.“ And so it began...

Let's Dance

Will the chronic inflammation and lesions that have plagued me and brought a dramatic worsening of my condition for almost two years start to calm down?

Purpose

As my acute troubles continue - chronic brain inflammation with new lesions, losing my vision, inability to feed myself, and confusion- I have been thinking about purpose.

The Old Street

For me, 2018 was like navigating this street in a wheelchair. I am currently sitting stuck in the largest pothole.

Lessons from Mr. Rogers

"It’s you I like, It’s not the things you wear, It’s not the way you do your hair– But it’s you I like The way you are right now . . ."

Samurai

Lying on the wood floor, I played a game with myself. I imagined that I was a samurai sleeping across the threshold of his Lord. Samurai slept on wood without anything else, I thought. So “samurai! Bonsai!”“ Whatever. I was still stuck.

Get Busy Living

“Please call me asap” read the text from my neurologist. This could not be good news.

Mindful Through Terror

These days, my experience of walking feels like climbing a rock face.

Christmas Wolves

There is a story about a Cherokee grandfather teaching his grandson about life.

Gratitude showers our lives with Grace

Grateful and together, we celebrated on Thanksgiving. Now we move forward in Grace to the next moment. And the next.

An Urban Symphony with Extra Needles

After my needles were in, I stared at the ceiling and tried to meditate on my breath. Not today. Frustrated, I smoldered until a set of sounds came together in my conscious mind.

The Story No One Wants to Read

Everyone living with MS knows that each story is individual and unique. The picture of the disease that we paint needs to take into account some of the harsher parts.

At Last, a Disease Modifying Therapy

Then I wake up. But this is no dream. This is the story of my year-long search for a treatment, a disease-modifying therapy that will halt or at least slow this inexorable disease.

11:17am

My dogs are thinking “will he ever get up from the chair and go somewhere else so that something interesting might happen?"

To Be Known and to Be Loved - A Poem

Some Good News from an Old Buddy

My left leg sucks, no two ways about it. But last week it started to suck worse, like a lot worse...

Family and Forgiveness, by Pope Francis

"There is no perfect family."

Inspiration on a Newark NJ flight to DC

When we landed, I waited in my seat as usual so as not to hold up deplaning while I embark on yet another rolling airport adventure. I noticed that the soldier was waiting also, and as soon as the last passenger went by, she came over to readjust my crutches and hand me my bag.

No Mud, No Lotus

There’s been a lot of mud described here in the last few posts, so I thought I’d describe a Lotus that bloomed in Washington DC recently.

A Sign for a Broken Road

Gil writes a short poem about the new disabled parking sign in front of his house.

Not MS?

My neurologist sounded frightened “I usually get paged by my office for MRI results like this. I can’t believe I missed them. I don’t want you to see the slides.” She said that these were the worst set of slides of my brain and spine that she had ever seen.

It Happened at the Seattle Women's March

Just to the side of the route, we were close enough to touch them. An older woman with a beautiful, careworn face and deep, piercing eyes singled me out.

Cul-de-sacs

I learned what the word “cul-de-sac” meant when my mother moved me and my brother to Bellevue, Washington, then a suburb of Seattle, now a major city in its own right. I had two different paper routes during two different periods of my adolescence in Bellevue. Both involved lots of turning around at the dead ends of suburban streets. Cul-de-sac is a much nicer word than dead end.

The Master in the Kitchen

Every six weeks, my beautiful wife transforms our house for a religious experience.

Is this the end?

Although I use wheelchairs at work and for distance, my walker still supported those 50 or so paces from my door to a car or into a restaurant or around the house. Until two weeks ago.

Get Busy Living

"Please call me asap" read the text from my neurologist. This could not be good news.

Mindful Through Terror

These days, my experience of walking feels like climbing a rock face.

It happened on a grimy New York subway in 1985

My first New York subway ride was in 1985, with a new friend in the tender first week of college. It brought a moment that will stay with me forever.